Harry Potter and the Mound of Random Items
by fuchsiagr0an
Summary: What the heck is going on at Hogwarts School of Wizardry? A sinister honking creature is threatening the students and only Harry, Ron, and Hermione can save the day! Again. Story takes place after Prisoner of Azkaban.
1. Too Much Paranoias

_This was written more to annoy my brother than anything, but since he's never read any Harry Potter most of the jokes went right past him. Originally posted to a darkmark forum and was greeted by complete silence since it contained no 'ships, snogging, or even holding hands. I recently discovered it on my harddrive and after finding my notes for further chapters I decided to slap a fresh new coat of paint on it and send it back out, kicking and screaming, into the cold, cruel world. _

_Contains loads of Harry Potter and passing references to incidents and/or characters from Star Trek, Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, and some other stuff I may have mentally absorbed but forgot the sources. It's obsessively canon except for the bit in Snape's dungeon where the story is told from his perspective rather than Harry's. I could have fixed that with a whopping great re-write but I'm lazy. So there._

_Yes, the chapters are titles to old Devo songs, for no real reason other than I've been a Devo fan since like 1979._

Chapter One

Too Much Paranoias

In the Hallway Just to the Left of the Great Hall, No Further Left Than That, Harry Potter was being followed. Again. Strange shadows lurked in the corners, creeping silently, stopping when he stopped. This time it wasn't the Great Snapperoo Beast which gave his naked bottom a sharp flick with a wet towel in the changing room any time his back was turned. It also wasn't the Jolly Roger, which wasn't actually named Roger but it did jolly unspeakable things to its victim's backside, also when his back was turned. It couldn't be the mythical Night-Wanker, the infamous 'Self-Polluting Spirit' who all the teachers refused to talk about but was much discussed (in whispers) by the older boys. Harry had never seen one himself and didn't actually believe it existed, but was told there was a wizard who ran a very dodgy, dank little bookshop in Hogsmead who could conjure one up for him. He also sold cigarettes, French postcards, and rubber articles in packets of six. Harry didn't know how he felt about that one.

The floor creaked. Harry certainly hoped it wasn't that mysterious 'licking gnome' that crept about the lower corridors at night. It was the personal pet of a long since sacked DADA teacher and had slipped from the professor's quarters years ago, never to return. It hid in the shadows and would suddenly pounce, slobbering and licking, leaving any clothing below the belt sopping wet. Some unlucky students got caught by the 'licking gnome' several times a night. Harry was beginning to wonder about the sanity of the demented wizards who kept troubling beasts like this as pets. Their laundry bill must be staggering…

Harry looked around, in case there were Nasty Whirling Things, the big nasty things that whirled. Those had been a recurring problem since Book Ten--_Harry Potter and the Whopping Great Nuisance_. He shuddered with the memory. He swore he would never retell the story, and suggests you go and buy the damn book.

Harry stopped and listened. No sound. That was bad, frightfully bad. Much worse than if there actually were sounds. No sounds could only mean the Silent Strangling Doo-Whacky, one of the most horrific creatures ever conjured up by wizardkind, one whose reign of terror left its victims ripped open and gutted like fish, spewing fountains of meat and gore. It sucked out the eyes of its prey, and then capered about wearing their rotting skins. It picked its teeth with the bones of unborn babies then flossed with their sinews. It was also rumored to listen to 'Lite Jazz' on the radio and sell Herbalife. Just the very mention of the Silent Strangling Doo-Whacky was enough to cause even the most hardened old Combat Wizard to squeal like a girl and wet himself.

There was a bump. Harry breathed a sigh of relief. A bump meant it wasn't a Silent Strangling Doo-Whacky. Harry wouldn't encounter a Silent Strangling Doo-Whacky until Book Fourteen--_Harry Potter Grasps at Straws_ (Pre-order now at Amazon!). Relieved it wasn't the Silent Strangling Doo-Whacky Harry listened again. There came from down the hall the sound of large, clomping feet. Big Kids. It had to be Big Kids. Only Big Kids had feet that big.

'Blimey,' thought Harry. 'Big Kids! They'll give me such a thrashing...' He didn't know which way to turn. Big Kids frightened Harry more than Voldemort did.

All the Big Kids hated Harry Potter. They thought he was a swotty, bespectacled little git. With a scar. The only thing Big Kids _liked_ about Harry Potter was that his head was just the right size to fit down the loo, glasses, scar and all. The last time Harry had had a run-in with Big Kids he had woken up behind the wheel of a junked Morris Minor parked in front of Windsor Castle. That in itself wouldn't have been so bad, except for the fact the car was filled with dungbombs and Harry was wearing a tatty green jumper with 'Kiss Me I'm Irish' scrawled on the front in marker. He managed to make his escape before Muggle police discovered him, despite the car having been festooned with parking tickets and an orange metal boot locked on the front wheel (See Book Twelve—_The Zen of Harry Potter_).

There was a low, sinister honking noise. It wasn't Big Kids. Big Kids never honked; they were much too big for such nonsense. Suddenly there was a blood-curdling scream, a ripping sound, and then the head of a previously unmentioned Hogwarts student rolled down the hall towards Harry, leaving a sticky trail as it bounced. Harry was torn between the horror that someone had been decapitated and relief that it wasn't him this time.

While Harry was evading the foul beings lurking in the depths of the Hallway Just to the Left of the Great Hall, No Further Left Than That, Professor Snape was skulking in his dungeon being a slimy, evil git to a jar of rather unfortunate beetles. He was in a foul mood. Fouler even than when Harry and his best friend Ron Weasley had caught him picking a daisy last spring. He was intending to slowly pluck each petal from the daisy and tread on them, one at a time, but the story that had gone around the school was that he was going soft and had taken up flower arranging. He crushed a large wriggling beetle in his sallow hands, imagining it to have spectacles and a lightning-bolt scar.

A loud, wet sniff came from the shadows in the back of the dungeon.

'Jones, aren't you done scraping off those toadstools?' growled Snape without looking up. 'Don't they teach you anything at those Muggle schools?' He swept the remains of the beetle from his hands and slunk to the back of the dungeon to get a better look.

'Y-y-yes, but-but-but we never had to-to-toadstools growing un-un-under our desks!' she wailed. Jones was a nondescript Hufflepuff and the newest exchange student from America, inexplicably wearing a red Star Fleet tunic under her robes. She was clumsily scraping at a large growth of toadstools sprouting under the desks in the darkest back corner. 'I don't see-see-see why I have to get-get detention. It was meant to be a com-com-compliment!' she stammered. Jones wiped her runny nose on her sleeve and continued her inexpert scraping.

Professor Snape scowled. 'Miss Jones, I do not pretend to know the work of this Muggle thespian you allude my resemblance to. I do however know this Mr Rickman to be at least twice my age and I do not consider it a compliment, hence the month's detention.' Snape looked down his overlarge nose at Miss Jones' toadstool-removing ability and sneered while she sobbed even louder.

Suddenly out in the hall came a low, sinister honking noise, so sinister that it could be heard over Hufflepuff Jones's incessant wailing and Professor Snape's constant sneering. Both Snape and Jones looked up as a shadow slid past the dungeon door.

'Jones, why don't you end detention early today? I would prefer not to have to witness this charming display of mucous production any further,' said Snape, slimily. He pointed at the door. 'Get out of my sight.'

'Ye-ye-yes! I'll go!' and with that Jones was up and out the door like a freshly caught Cornish pixie. She shot down the hall and in her haste she ran smack into something soft and squashy. It gave a sort of surprised honk. Miss Jones shrieked, there was a ripping sound, and then her body and head parted ways. Professor Snape saw her head as it rolled stickily past his dungeon doorway. This concerned him for about 9/10ths of a nanosecond before he returned to squashing beetles. He had no patience with exchange students--decapitated or otherwise, and detested the very thought of them cluttering up his dungeon.

Snape returned to his little beetle-populated psychodrama. 'Potter, why haven't you done your homework?' Snape growled to a new beetle. 'I don't have to. I'm Harry Potter!' he mimicked in a high voice, capering the beetle about on the desk like tiny doll. 'We'll see about that,' he sneered, pulling the beetle's head off and spitting down the neck-hole.

The low, sinister honking noise faded as the thing clomped its way down the hall.


	2. Strange Pursuit

Chapter Two

Strange Pursuit

In the Hallway Just to the Left of the Great Hall, No Further Left Than That, Harry made a feeble attempt to hide in the shadow of a large and nasty statue. It was Fosgood the Flatulent, creator of Large Smelly Clouds. Using a Large Smelly Cloud Fosgood had either saved Hogwarts or won the Quidditch Cup; it was hard to say due to the foul protective fog clinging to Fosgood's statue like some otherworldly force-field. No-one could get near the thing to read the inscription much less remove the statue and chuck it down some deep well. Most Large Smelly Clouds were impervious to even the most powerful _Gladeius Airwikkius_ spell and this one was one of the worst. This one even had a _taste_ for God's sake. Harry didn't stay in the vicinityhe couldn't hold his breath that long so he moved on, eyes watering.

Harry crouched in the shadow of a doorway. He listened. The low, sinister honk moved further away, then silence. Harry took this to be a good sign and rocketed his way back to the Gryffindor common room, avoiding a squeaking inflatable bunny and a zombie Nazi on the way.

In the Gryffindor common room Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley were sitting in their favorite spots in front of the fire. Hermione's table was piled with at least one-third of the Hogwarts libraryshe was either writing an essay or building a small fort. Ron was sprawled in a comfy chair reading a comic book instead of doing his charms homework. There was a large, fat toad turning on a spit in the fireplace and every so often Ron would brush a sticky glaze over it.

'Honestly, Ron, I still can _not_ believe you did that,' tutted Hermione as she added another footnote to Volume 17, page 12 of her already voluminous essay _'Muggle Pencils Are Pointless—Discuss.'_ She put down her quill and wrinkled her brow at him. 'You know he's going to find out eventually.'

'It was an accident, I keep telling you. If he hadn't been squatting on the stairs I wouldn't have stepped on him. You know how he's always escapingit had to happen eventually,' said Ron defensively. 'Besides that I've already replaced him. Neville'll never know the difference.' He poked the toad with his finger then pointed at Hermione. 'Don't you dare tell him!' He licked the glaze off his finger, smiled and went back to his comic.

'You've only replaced Trevor with a Chocolate Frog. Neville will figure it out when it melts. He's not _that_ thick,' she said, shaking her head. She grimaced as she smeared the ink on her immaculate essay.

Just then Harry staggered into the room, breathless. 'You wooon't be-believe what I just saw in the, the, the...' He took a deep breath and clutched at the stitch in his side. '...the Hallway Just to the Left of the Great Hall, No Fu-Further Left Than That!' He looked at them expectantly, hoping they wouldn't ask him to repeat it.

'You-Know-Who!' squeaked Hermione, turning pale. Ron looked horrified. Harry shook his head, still out of breath, more from having to say 'the Hallway Just to the Left of the Great Hall, No Further Left Than That' than from shock of seeing someone having their head pulled off.

'Was it Daleks? I bet it's Daleks!' Ron's face lit up and he grinned like someone insane. He shot out one fist in a bizarre salute. 'Exterminate! Exterminate!' He collapsed into a fit of giggles.

'We've done Daleks already, Ron. You still don't remember do you?' Harry closed his eyes and sighed. He'd already been through this once today already. He said patiently, slowly counting on his fingers, 'We've defeated the Daleks twice, once on Earth and once on Mars. It wasn't Daleks.'

Ron had had his memory accidentally altered during the second Dalek invasion and now sometimes thought they were part of some low-budget Muggle television program. Some days it took several complicated spells and a rather nasty potion to get him back to normal. One particularly bad day they gave up and just hit him with sticks for about ten minutes. This didn't seem to help but it made Harry and Hermione feel better.

"Are you sure Harry?' said Hermione, looking concerned. She glanced at Ron who was still giggling in his chair.

Harry shook his head. 'Yes, this creature made a low, sinister honking sound before it ripped a student's head off. Daleks don't honk and they certainly don't pull off people's heads.' He noticed the toad crackling in the fireplace. 'Say, is that Glazed Toad?'

Hermione flipped furiously through the massive, dusty books she had spread out on the table. 'Low, sinister honking noise, low sinister honking noise, honking, honking...' she muttered to herself as she searched. 'I know I've seen it...a-Ha!' She triumphantly stabbed the book with her finger, sending up a cloud of ancient dust. 'Here, on page 873 of _Sinister Honks and the Creatures Who Make Them_!'

Just then Neville Longbottom wandered up to her table, coughing in the dust cloud.

'Has anyone seen my toad?' he sniffed imploringly. 'He was sleeping in my pocket all afternoon but now he's gone.' He wiped his hand surreptitiously on his robes.

'Toad go poo in your pocket again?' said Ron sympathetically, trying to keep a straight face.

'S'not poo, it's chocolate,' said Neville tearfully looking at his hand, not entirely convinced. He turned and morosely plodded back up the stairs to his dormitory, calling 'Trevor! Here boy!' Hermione gave Ron a disapproving glare, tutting again and shaking her head.

'You were saying?' Harry began, but before Hermione could open her mouth there came a low, sinister honking noise from outside the portrait hole. Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at each other and turned ghost-white.

There would be no Glazed Toad tonight.


	3. Freedom of Choice

Chapter Three

Freedom of Choice

The low, sinister honking faded away as whatever-it-was clomped its way down the hall. It seemed to travel rather slowly on its large clumsy feet. Silence. A bit more silence. A whopping great chunk of silence. Then much larger feet marched purposely up to the Fat Lady's portrait. Suddenly the portrait door swung open and Professor McGonagall, head of Gryffindor house, made a rather undignified entrance through the hole in the wall. She squirmed through the hole headfirst and landed on the floor with a plop, her boots pedaling the air, and showing her long, red wooly knickers. 'I'll curse whoever the useless pillock was who designed these dratted doorways...' she muttered angrily to herself as she stood up and straightened her robes. Everyone in the room looked expectantly at her, since she never came through that door without horrifically bad news, usually involving deaths and/or canceling Quidditch matches.

'I'm sure you have heard the rumor that there has been a small incident involving a Hufflepuff student, a Miss Ensign Jones. She is to be sent home immediately. There is nothing more to worry about as it's nearly dinner time.' At that she turned on her heel and crawled back through the portrait hole and slammed the door. Everyone stared at the shut door, confused. No-one had heard any rumors. No-one could even remember what Ensign Jones looked like, nor any of the other Hufflepuffs for that matter. At least they weren't canceling Quidditch. Relieved, the common room returned to its previous level of noise.

Hermione looked at Harry. 'See, Professor McGonagall said Ensign Jones was all right and she would never lie to us. Maybe you mistook something else for a severed head. Some of those hallways are pretty dark. I've read how rolling rats can _easily_ look like a severed heads,' she said reasonably. She started packing her essay into a mobile wooden filing cabinet while Ron looked confused and tried to figure out how a rolling rat could possibly look like a severed head.

Harry thought for a second and frowned. 'No, that can't be right. The student I saw being decapitated wasn't a girl and he wasn't a Hufflepuff. His head certainly wasn't a rolling rat. Something horrible really is out there and they're not telling us what it is.' He frowned again. 'Maybe we should stay in the common room tonight.' There was Glazed Toad and Harry remembered some candy left in the bottom of a Honeydukes bag in his dormitory. There were Toffee Slugs ('As slimy as a real slug!'), Pus Pops ('Pop a pimple into your mouth!'), and Choco-Logs ('Real turds lovingly coated in rich, luxurious Swiss chocolate!'). He groaned and wondered why he often let Ron talk him into buying this inedible rubbish.

'What kind of git would name their daughter "Ensign"?' fumed Ron, losing patience. All this talk was interrupting some prime toad-grilling. He had thankfully forgotten about Daleks for the evening.

'Maybe her parents were hippies,' said Hermione, thinking aloud as she packed 'vol. 4, E-H' into the second drawer of her cabinet. Her homework had lately outgrown her schoolbag so she had taken to dragging a little wheeled filing cabinet about with her like a U-Haul trailer. 'Didn't you say you once had some neighbors who bought some dodgy toadstools from Muggles and then started naming their children after rubbish they found on the lawn? I can't believe they called that poor girl "Sundial Dogsmess".' She looked at Ron. Ron looked at Harry. Harry looked at Hermione. Hermione looked at Trevor, or more correctly at the place where Trevor once was roasting nicely over open flames.

'Ron! Trevor's gone!' shrieked Hermione, pointing at the fire. Now they _had_ to go to the Great Hall.

Ron ran to the fireplace. 'It's that Sirius Black again! He's nicked my toad!' He kicked his chair a couple of times. 'I know he's your godfather and everything Harry but,' he kicked the chair again, harder. 'That's the third time this week. Toast, marshmallows, sausages, he's nicked them all! Knickers!' Ron did an angry little dance, but only on one foot since he kicked the chair a bit too hard the second time. 'When we saw him in Hogsmead on Tuesday I _thought_ I saw marshmallow in his fur!' He sat down and grumped, rubbing his sore foot. The loss of a succulent grilled toad was a severe blow.

Harry had also been looking forward to at least a taste of Trevor. Ron had probably used Mrs Weasley's excellent toad glaze recipe as well. 'Well, let's go down to dinner,' he said resignedly. 'Maybe they'll tell us something while we're all there. We should be safe in the Great Hall with all the teachers around, but wands out in the halls, OK?' He snickered, but low enough so that neither Ron nor Hermione heard. He'd always thought the phrase 'wands out' sounded a bit rude, apparently only to adolescent Muggle males, but then saying 'I'd like two pints and a packet of crisps, please' to a wizard of any age usually got you a punch on the nose. He thought he'd never get the hang of all this wizarding nonsense.

They made their way cautiously to the Great Hall, starting at every sound. Ron accidentally zapped an unsuspecting house-elf to bits with his wand when they turned a corner. Before they could brush elf from their robes Peeves the poltergeist shot out of a doorway and spun around in front of them, blocking their path. He made a couple of rude gestures, a loud wet raspberry, showed them his bottom, twirled the tassels on his nipples, and then disappeared with a pop. At least he wasn't behaving like a feces-flinging zoo monkey—he saved that for special occasions.

'He must have run out of Small Smelly Clouds,' whispered Hermione thankfully. She'd had it with Peeves's arseing about since she had been the butt of his latest round of juvenile pranks. Small Smelly Clouds were the result of Harry's defeating one of the Large Smelly Clouds which he had inadvertently released when he tipped over the Bucket of Doom (Book Nine_Harry Potter and the Bucket of Doom_). The thing had been trapped there since the days of Fosgood the Flatulent. The true purpose of Large Smelly Clouds was lost in the (ahem) _mists_ of time but Fosgood had always claimed they were a force for good not evil. 'Better out than in!' was his motto, whatever that meant. No one ever got close enough to find out. Harry had blasted this particular cloud to bits of smaller, less-lethal smelly clouds when it insisted on hanging about the Gryffindor common room and everyone got tired of hiding in their dormitories with their robes pulled up over their noses. It was also feared that when the fires were lit the whole place would go up like an atom bomb. The Small Smelly Clouds were less of a nuisance since they tended to drift harmlessly through the halls and when anyone encountered them they could easily be blamed on a cat, owl, or toad. Peeves took to swatting these clouds at horrified first-years as though they were some foul spectral bludgers and then pointing and shouting 'Farty!' When the fun from that wore off he dug up a cue stick and potted the clouds into the pockets of unsuspecting passers-by, where they would linger, slowly releasing a carnival of smells until laundry day. Since there was no avoiding Peeves in the hallways Hermione was shaking several of them from her robes every evening until she finally magicked the pockets off altogether. Still, it was better than when Peeves behaved like a feces-flinging zoo monkey. _Anything_ was better than that.


	4. Race of Doom

Chapter Four

Race of Doom

Harry, Ron, and Hermione arrived safely in the Great Hall and sat at their usual places at the Gryffindor table, putting their wands next to their plates, just in case. The Great Hall seemed a bit more crowded than usual but Harry thought that was probably due to the claustrophobic effect of the enchanted ceiling. It made the eyes hurt to look at it for very long. This evening it was filled with a nauseating array of rainbows, twinkling stars, and pink clouds. Miniature pastel-colored winged unicorns had sprung up from somewhere and were flitting about, scenting the air with a sickeningly sweet imitation-strawberry smell, and scattering tiny flowers in their wake. Everyone knew winged unicorns didn't exist but for some reason they always seemed to pop out of thin air any time someone combined rainbows with pink clouds. Only Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil seemed at all enchanted by this affront to the senses.

'I see Hufflepuff hasn't gotten a bigger table,' said Ron as he sat down. 'They're still using those manky old folding things they found in the garage.' Harry turned and looked over at the Hufflepuffs—he didn't realize Hogwarts even had a garage. There were about thirty or so rather morose first-years, most crammed around five grotty card tables with cigarette burns and stains on the plastic surfaces. One table had a leg propped up on matchbook covers. There were also three first-years sharing one sticky TV table and several more held their plates in their laps. A jug of pumpkin juice had already been tipped over as the students jostled each other for space.

'At least they've all got chairs now, I'm sure they got tired of sitting on the floor. The Marx triplets still don't look happy though, do they?' Harry said sympathetically. The Marx brothersZeppo, Gummo, and Karlwere direct blood descendants of Rowena Ravenclaw and every single wizard in their family, even the duffers, had been sorted into Ravenclaw house. Strangely, the Sorting Hat had seemed a bit tetchy at the Sorting Feast this term. It had been shrieking 'Hufflepuff! Hufflepuff!' even as it was being brought into the Great Hall by Professor McGonagall, then muttered 'You know the drill,' instead of singing its usual dorky song. The Hat grumpily refused to put any students into the other three houses and went quiet. The wizarding tabloid _The Moon (All the Fits That Are News to Print)_, insinuated there was a lawsuit in the works, according to an unnamed source, and there was talk that the new students were sleeping in the Hufflepuff common room on military surplus camp-beds.

Meanwhile, Draco Malfoy and his unpleasant sidekicks Crabbe and Goyle were at the Slytherin table snickering and pointing, which is what they had done every day, at every meal, for the past five years. At least they had a hobby. Today they were sitting with their backs to the Gryffindor table for once, but had creatively pinned their POTTER STINKS buttons to the backs of their pointed hats. Goyle had pinned his on upside-down. Every so often a little unicorn would swoop over the Slytherin table only to be swatted out of the air by Malfoy. Strangely enough, no-one seemed at all upset by this except for Lavender and Parvati. Each time a winged unicorn hit the floor with a splat one of the pair would let out a squeak like a squashed mouse, which was nothing compared to the ungodly racket the unicorns made.

Ron was staring at his empty plate, as was just about every other student. 'House-elves are a bit late tonight,' he said, still staring as though that would make food appear. He turned to Hermione and pulled a face. 'I certainly hope you haven't convinced them to go on strike.' Before Hermione could answer the plates filled, just like magic, or something almost nearly unlike magic. There was cold Spam with that revolting jelly left on, Wheat Meat, tinned off-brand baked beans, Minute Rice, Vienna sausages, instant mashed potatoes made with too much water, barely thawed Brussels sprouts, pasta with cheese substitute, and creamed spinach. Most of this appeared to have been haphazardly slopped into whatever container was closest, clean or not. Vienna sausages were obscenely crammed into a smallish water pitcher, baked beans were spilling out of an overturned pot lid, and creamed spinach had been carelessly heaped onto a butter dish that still held a half-stick of butter. To add insult to injury for dessert there were cherry cough drops and the ultimate example of man's inhumanity to manNecco Wafers. These had been unceremoniously dumped into a colander.

'Crikey, are we expected to eat this?' moaned Ron as he watched runny mashed potato drip from the tines of his plastic spork. Hermione stared in disbelief at the cold Spam and its wobbly jelly, then shut her eyes and disgustedly threw her napkin back onto her plate.

Harry had long since given up on having a decent meal tonight since the loss of Trevor—those leftover Honeydukes sweets were even starting to sound appetizing. He nudged Ron with his elbow. 'Look at the teachers' table,' he whispered, trying not to laugh. The teachers were none too happy with tonight's dinner either. Professor Snape had speared a drippy little pink Vienna sausage on the end of his knife and was eyeing it suspiciously. Professors Sprout and Flitwick had both pushed their plates as far away as they could without dropping them off the table and Professor McGonagall had given up and had turned her back on the proceedings. Even Hagrid, who had the culinary expertise of a wombat, was only sniffing his plate and grimacing. Several times he had picked up the plate and looked under it as though it was some colossal bad joke and that was where the real food was hidden. Professor Dumbledore, on the other hand, had spied the Necco Wafers and was happily eating them, even the brown ones, whatever they were. He offered one to Professor McGonagall who could only tighten her lips and shake her head quickly. Dumbledore shrugged and started eating the rest like a starving man.

While Harry was idly poking rubbery Minute Rice around the puddle of water on his plate he realized that nothing about this term had been at all right. It was worse even than Book Eight_Harry Potter Gets Voted Off the Island_. Several weeks ago at the Dursleys he had been woken by his Uncle Vernon shrieking at the top of his lungs. When Harry had gone down to investigate, Uncle Vernon had grabbed him by the collar and propelled him out into the back garden which was now filled to a depth of about three feet in gravel. Harry had tried to suggest that maybe Aunt Petunia had had the garden redone as a surprise but Uncle Vernon was having none of it. 'Where's the water feature then? Where is the bloody water feature?' he shouted as he jumped up and down, face beet-red. 'If the garden had been done properly there would have been a water feature!' The Dursleys had of course assumed Harry had magicked up twelve tons of gravel during the night, though if Harry was going to do illegal magic during the summer holidays he would have just turned them all into dryer lint and stuffed them down the plughole. Aunt Petunia's immaculate garden waist-deep in gravel just wasn't worth risking expulsion from Hogwarts, amusing though it was. Later Harry's cousin Dudley had sprouted hairnot the normal hair in the normal places, but a strip of thick black fur down his back. The Dursleys also blamed this on Harry (though Harry had tried to suggest it was some freakish type of puberty) and made him sleep in the back garden for the rest of the summer. He'd burrowed into the gravel and slept there, even in the rain, during the last days before term started. Then there was this horrendous food and the nonsense with the Sorting Hat. The gravel and Dudley's fur could have been passed off as 'normal,' or at least normal in the wizarding world, but could someone have tampered with the Sorting Hat? It should have been stored safely in Dumbledore's office, where no-one could get at it. The most that should have happened was that it got a little dusty or deposited with the occasional phoenix dropping.

'Hermione, just what did you find in that book about the low, sinister honking noise?' asked Harry, but before she could answer Neville's fork had suddenly grown to about twenty feet long and knocked Draco's hat into his warmed-over gazpacho soup. He had accidentally picked up Harry's wand instead of his knife and besides stretching his fork to monstrous size he had created a tidal wave of baked beans that was threatening to engulf them all. Beans poured from every bowl and glass. It was all Harry could do to keep his head above the mess. He was a lousy swimmer and swallowed more baked beans than he would have voluntarily consumed in his lifetime (Harry sincerely hoped that this wasn't how Fosgood the Flatulent got started), but managed to dog-paddle his way, gagging, to the doors. Ron and Hermione, better swimmers than Harry, were already there struggling to open them, shouting every spell they knew as the tide of beans rose higher. All they had managed to do was to make the doors turn pink and grow warts. Harry's wand, unfortunately, was still clutched in the panicked hands of Neville Longbottom who had been swept to the other side of the room in the initial wave of beans. Students clambered shrieking onto windowsills and hung by wall lanterns and still others were caught struggling in the vile ocean of cheap, tepid, tinned baked beans. Several unicorns were caught unawares and had mercifully drowned, their sodden bodies floating past. Flitwick was hooked by the back of his robe to a chandelier and Dumbledore was perched upon an upturned card table, paddling with a dinner plate. He had inexplicably managed to rescue the colander of Necco Wafers. A great sneering mound of beans and tomato sauce swept by Harry and he could have _sworn_ it looked like Professor Snape, but he couldn't be sure.

'Did you hear that?' shouted Harry, clinging to a doorknob. Hermione stopped in the middle of a whopping great _Mekkalekka-Hi-Mekka-Heiny-Ho_ spell and she and Ron put their ears gingerly to the warty door. From outside the Great Hall came a familiar noise.

It was a low, sinister honking sound.


End file.
